Who is this Daniel? What do we know about him?
(1) In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
(2) The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.
This was in 605 B.C., the first of three stages of captivity. This is when Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiakim to Babylon in fetters (II Chronicles 36: 5-7). Daniel and his friends were also deported at this time to Babylon.
(3) Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles,
(4) youths in whom was no defect, who were good-looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had the ability for serving in the king's court; and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.
Nebuchadnezzar adopted an enlightened policy of enlisting the most promising young men of his new empire into government service, whatever their nationality, instead of reserving leadership for the Chaldeans alone, or even for the ethnic Babylonians whose cultural traditions reached back to the age of Hammurabi.
Since the hostages from Judah included the finest of the royalty and nobility, it was reasonable to open up special opportunities for gifted young Jews at the Royal Academy, once they qualified. This fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied to Hezekiah in II Kings 20: 17-18;
"Behold the days are coming when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord. Some of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away; and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon."Daniel and his friends qualified for entrance into this Academy, apparently having no defect, good-looking, intelligent, and having a high degree of discernment and understanding, mental and social skills and abilities.
The word used for "officials" is also translated "eunuchs" and apparently Daniel and his friends never married, so it is possible that they may have been involuntarily castrated.
(5) The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank,
He wanted them to be nourished adequately and be healthy.
and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king's personal service.
So the Royal Academy had a three-year degree course of study. Those who graduated would be considered for high rank in the king's personal service.
(6) Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
So these four were not the only ones, just the ones we will focus on in this book. I'm sure that there were quite a few others who were offered this opportunity, but didn't qualify or live up to the high expectations.
(7) Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them;
They were to take on new identities, as world-citizens, to remove any sense of local nationality. This has continually been the goal of every aspiring world-dictator. This attitude is still prevalent, even today, as there are still people who want to set up a "One-World" government for their own benefit.
and to Daniel he assigned the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to Mishael Meshach, and to Azariah Abed-nego.
These four had names that honored The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel: Daniel means "God is my Judge;" Hananiah means "Yahweh has shown Grace;" Mishael means "Who is as God is?"; and Azariah is "Yahweh Has Helped."
The new names given them all give honor to Babylonian idols.
Daniel was given the name Belteshazzar, which means "Nebo, Protect My Life!"
Hananiah was called Shadrach, which means "The Command of Aku."
Mishael was given the equivalent name Meshach, which means "Who is as Aku is?
And Azariah was called "Abed-Nego" which means "Servant of Nego" (or "Nebo").
Nebo was the idol that Nebuchadnezzar worshiped (4: 8).
These four young men were committed to a very demanding and many-faceted course of study. This must have included not only the mastery of spoken Chaldean, but also of Akkadian, the official, literary language of Babylon from before the days of Hammurabi. Babylonian religion had always required a thorough knowledge of Summerian literature--religious, magical, astrological, and scientific. These four were subjected to a very rigorous and demanding curriculum, requiring their full attention as they mastered the important documents written in cuneiform Akkadian and Summerian and contained in the central imperial library in Babylon. And by the time Daniel wrote this book, the spoken language was Aramaic, in which he wrote chapters 2-7, using Hebrew for chapters 1 and 8-12.
So they received a full doctoral program of education in three years, and had to prepare themselves for the final exam in "all kinds of literature and learning" (v. 17). Talk about pressure!
The young men were all, not just these four, were expected to apply themselves and be able to learn a tremendous amount of information in a short period of time, as a matter of course! Were people smarter than us back then? Who today would expect such a large segment of a people group to be able to handle this curriculum successfully?
At any rate, these four young Jews were given a tremendous amount of technical knowledge to learn in only 3 years time, so they must have been exceptionally intelligent.
This is who Daniel was. He was an exceptionally smart young man who grew up in this pagan society as a privileged member of the upper class. What do you think this would do to his moral integrity?
O my Father, You gave Daniel and his friends so many advantages, and in doing so, you had him write and teach us some very important lessons.
Father, help us to learn these lessons in this classroom of life while we walk in this world among the evil and wickedness surrounding us. Teach us to be faithful to You and Your ways no matter what is going on around us, good or bad.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus is our Christ, the Lord God Almighty, sovereign King over all Creation; to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
